Choices
by OwlheadAthena
Summary: 'It used to be so simple...'  Danny reflects on who he is, and what he has become from a simple choice.
1. Chapter 1

**Some of you guys may be wondering why I'm not updating.**

**Well, it's complicated.**

**1) I'm in a play where we have ten-hour rehearsals that I HAVE to attend, so I can practice being on stage for less than ten minutes -_-' Honestly. I only sing one song, have no lines, and just stand there for two or three songs.**

**God I hate my life sometimes.**

**2) Another reason is that while I'm all A's in Social Studies, I'm dipping into the C- range in Math O.O… GOTTA STUDY-UDY-UDY!**

**3) I'm just becoming more and more depressed/anxious as the days go by, and I'm having a harder time focusing. So now all I'm writing is angst, which doesn't bode well with what I'm writing, hence why I haven't been updating.**

**So yeah, those are my 'excuses'.**

**Anyway, I've been slowly realizing how bad Danny Phantom is actually for my health. Lately, I've been feeling hollow and empty, but quickly re-filling, almost too the brink. I haven't been able to sleep well, either, so I have dark circles under my eyes. I've always been a bit emo, but lately, small things me and my friends always have done with each other- teasing for instance- is slowly becoming more and more irritating and on Friday, in art, I finally snapped.**

**I won't go in details, but basically: Add one annoying friend, one sharp dangerous cutter were using to make rubber stamps, and already slightly depressed/emo mind, and you get…**

**a hole in my arm, that is currently bandaged. Now it's not big, and it was hardly bleeding, so don't throw up guys :)**

**Anyway, cyber hugs and cookies are appreciated :p**

**NOTE: THIS IS BEFORE PP!**

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but my own inner turmoil. (I'm putting this as the disclaimer for every angst-y piece.)**

**SUMMERY: Danny reflects on who he is, and what he has become from a simple choice.**

it all started with the push of a button.

Something so stupidly simple, but it altered my life completely.

Who am I?

It used to be an easy question; I was Danny Fenton, Freshman at Casper High, punching bag for the jocks, loser, geek, and son of the town loons.

But now I'm not. I mean, I'm still Danny Fenton, I have his memories, his house, his family, but those memories…. seem like something from someone else's point of view. Their tantalizingly close, but out of reach all the same.

It used to be straightforward. I was Danny Fenton, but I slipped on a mask when duty called and became Danny Phantom. It was as easy as that. The one day, I put on the mask, and when I went to take it off, I found it was stuck. Glued to me, in a way.

I tried to resist. The world was supposed to be black and white, but now I was finding a great deal of gray. When resisting didn't work, I switched to defiance. I _wouldn't _be somebody I didn't want to be. I couldn't accept myself, my _own freaking self_, and to this day I'm still ashamed of how childish I'd been, how more lives could've been saved if I hadn't ever hesitated before going ghost…

It still haunts me.

Spectra was right. Emphasis on the _was. _The two times my secret had gotten out, people did accept me. Maybe I was a freak, maybe I did have creepy powers, but as long as I had my friends and family, I didn't care.

But back on topic.

I guess the day I realized Danny _Fenton _was the mask, and Danny _Phantom _was who I really am happened when Pariah attacked. I never hesitated, and I willingly almost died so the world would be safe. It was then I realized that when I first picked up the mantle of a superhero, I started down a dangerous path. I told Sam and Tucker myself; fighting ghosts wouldn't always be as simple as stuffing the Box Ghost into the Fenton thermos. It was dangerous, it was scary, it could kill us on a daily basis...

I don't regret a single moment.

After that, things seemed to get better. Later, I realized it was the calm before the storm. Then _he _came along.

Dan Phantom. Destroyer of the Ghost Zone, destroyer of the world. He killed billions of people in only ten years. And the worst part? He was _me. _My future. And I almost killed my family. Right when the boiler exploded, before Clockwork appeared, I felt a surge of emotions, hatred the strongest, hate for myself. As that stupid boiler exploded, I looked at their faces, the faces of people I had know for years… and I saw forgiveness. Forgiveness and acceptance of death. That last 'No!' I screamed… it had many reasons behind it. The main one was pleading for them to not leave me all alone, but the second one was for them to not forgive me. I wanted to be spurned, so when I died, I would be sent to hell, where I belonged.

I didn't _want _to be forgiven, if I knew I'd never apply it to myself.

At that moment, I wished I'd never gone into that ghost portal, if not that my friends and family would be spared from danger. What kind of hero was I, if I couldn't protect the people I loved?

But they were saved, and I vowed to never let that happen again.

But I broke that promise a year later.

Danielle… or as she liked to be called, Dani…. she was young, innocent and pure, and I wanted to protect her to my dying breath, if not to shield her from the horrors of the world. But my little clone inherited my bad luck, and got to experience it first hand through that son of a gun Vlad. I told her I'd keep her safe, but within five minutes she'd gotten kidnapped and brought to Vlad. I can still hear her screams, her crying out my name…

I thought I was too late. For real this time. No 'Clockwork tricks' up my sleeves anymore. She died, right in front of me, thanking me for failing…

I hate my life.

I'll admit, I cried. I had failed someone who was technically my _daughter_, the strongest bond on earth, parent and child, but I had let my down. And the consequences were her dying. When she reformed… it was as if everything that had ever gone wrong in my life just fly out the window.

Two years have gone by since I first got my powers… two years of pain and torture, love and lost, seeing the dead every single day…

My name is Danny Phantom, and I regret nothing.

***sigh* good enough, I guess.**

**~OHA**


	2. Chapter 2

**I can **_**not **_**tell you how grateful I am for all the support you guys are giving me. I FREAKING LOVE YOU PEOPLE!**

**So, I thought I'd change this from a one-shot to a multiple-shot from all different POV's. The formatting will stay the same, with me choosing specific episodes and expanding the view from a certain character, or even delving into my own original time lapses that never appeared in an episode, but that I'm creating anyway.**

**These are all also still centered around Danny going into the portal.**

**ENJOY! :p**

**Note: Hopefully, these will be less angst then before, but it depends on my mood when writing it.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own inner turmoil.**

* * *

><p>It was all my fault, and I know it.<p>

There was no way that anyone in Heaven or on Earth could change my mind on the fact that I killed my best friend.

Tucker and Danny constantly try to persuade me that it wasn't my fault, that fate would have had it anyway. Danny said that Clockwork told him that he would have gone into the portal eventually, I just sped up the process.

But that doesn't mean I didn't have a part in it.

The one time me and Danny got into an argument, right after he blamed me(in a way) for all those ghost's chasing Paulina, I had wished we had never met, not knowing Desiree was hovering invisible nearby.

And he forgot about.

Danny Fenton, the boy I had had a crush on for almost ten years, forgot about me. So did our best friend, Tucker, which hurt as well. And to fix this mess, at least partially, I had to make Danny recreate the portal accident as well.

I had to listen to screams of pain again, I saw a familiar white-hair green-eyes stumble out steaming, I had to feel his body fall through my hands again…

So many memories, so much pain.

Danny wasn't the only one who half-died that night.

I did, and so did Tucker.

The pain of not knowing whether our friend was alive or not, the knowledge we had sent him in there, tour at our soul, ripping it to shreds. It came partially together again when he stumbled out, but there would always be scars that would never disappear.

They come into focus when ever we fought ghosts, whenever Danny left to face-off against some unknown danger to save us all…

And all because I made him go into that portal.

All because I was curious.

All because secretly, on the inside, I wanted to go in myself but was too scared to do so. So I became a coward and sent Danny in as a sort of test, to make sure it was safe. And now I know it wasn't.

Every day I look at Danny, and see the bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep because he spent all night fighting ghosts so people like me could rest easy, and guilt pangs inside me, echoing and bouncing around until every molecule of myself is mentally hurting.

But then he smiles, laughs, putting on that confident and cocky grin and I know everything will be alright, that we'll pull through this.

But sometimes I wonder… what would life be like if Danny had no ghost powers? If we were all normal kids?

I wonder, but I don't wish.

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><p>OMG! <em>LINE BREAKS! (Yeah, I knew how, I was just to lazy :p)<em>

**YAYZ! :D**

**If you can't tell, this is from SAM'S POV**

**~OHA**

**Btw, yesterday was opening night for my play **_**The Secret Garden, **_**which is conveniently is filled with death and angst, probably one reason why I've been so down lately XD Wait a minute, is it 2 in the morning? NEVER MIND, my opening night was on Friday! And **_**yesterday **_**(XD) I had two plays, and today is the final one! Better get to bed :/**


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